Definition of Service Coordination
Addiction counseling is one of the most sensitive treatment programs, requiring careful implementation and application of various skills, attitudes, and knowledge. Service coordination is an essential function of offering counseling services. It entails the evaluative, administrative, and clinical actions that case managers take to harmonize community agencies, treatment services, and the client to address the treatment plan’s needs. In this process, an action framework includes client advocacy and case management to enable the client to achieve set goals. The target of service coordination is achieved by managing care systems, liaising with community agencies, and coordinating referral and treatment services in collaboration with the client and other stakeholders.
Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude
Competency 60 of addiction counseling entails establishing accurate recovery and treatment expectations with the client and other involved stakeholders. This competency’s main aspects include program goals and procedures, nature of services, rules on client conduct, schedule, and cost of treatment services and activities. The competency requires knowing the available community services, effective communication styles, resources and functions that managed care systems and treatment services provided, clients’ rights and responsibilities, treatment schedule and cost and program regulations. The skills this competency requires include establishing appropriate boundaries with the client and other significant stakeholders and demonstrating effective written and oral communication because addiction counseling requires clarity and conciseness. The attitude is respecting the clients’ input and that of the significant others to ensure effective treatment and recovery. These are the knowledge, skills, and attitude this addiction counseling competency requires.
Elements of Service Coordination
The main elements of service coordination include implementing the treatment plan, consulting, and continuing assessment and assessment planning. Implementing the treatment plan is an essential step in addiction counseling, and it determines the program’s success. When a referral is received, the agency needs first to initiate collaboration with the referral source. In that situation, the case manager must know how to keep the information of the referral confidential. The treatment plan is a concise framework with the specific steps that the client will follow to achieve the treatment goals. This plan is prepared based on the client’s problems and outlines each party’s role in the journey to recovery, therapeutic interventions, and the treatment schedule, and should be interactive. It should be individualized and outline the goals, strategies to achieve them, and the timeframes to be observed during the implementation phase. It is vital to customize the treatment plan to address the emotional, physical, social, and cultural needs of the client.
The treatment plan’s goals and actions or interventions must be realistic and achievable within the specified timeframe using the available resources. These interventions need to be mutually agreed upon by all parties, and each stakeholder should have a copy of the treatment plan. One key to the success of the treatment plan is to collaborate with the referral source constantly. This needs appropriate technology for various reasons, such as accessing, collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information concerning the client. It is also necessary to be sensitive to the client’s cultural and lifestyle differences, which calls for empathy and respect. Also, the case manager needs to develop rapport and trust with community agencies and other stakeholders to ensure effective collaboration with professionals from other specialties and disciplines while respecting their contributions to the treatment and recovery process. An effective treatment plan must achieve the treatment goals using the available resources and within the specific schedule.